Work Text:
In the weeks preceding the coming of the new lunar year, a spring cleaning ensures a start of the year under the best auspices. It stands to reason that the Cloud Recesses pay particular attention to this tradition and part of the workload falls to the junior disciples, those enlisted against their will grumbling about how the place is already speckless and does not require such thorough sweeping, scrubbing, moping, laundering, polishing.
Lan Sizhui has been assigned to the cleaning of a storeroom near the disciples quarters that has managed to escape tidying for too long. Amid the books and papers strewn around, he chances upon a wooden box carefully stored away. To his astonishment, it contains familiar toys, his own former boyhood treasures. A chipped spinning top, a few knucklebones, a battered shuttlecock. Their worn state a testament of many joyful childhood games. He suddenly realises that these were all gifts from none other than Hanguang-Jun himself when he was a young child, most often as a small reward when he began attending classes. They were tokens of encouragement for succeeding in reciting flawlessly his lessons or overcoming a tricky musical segment on the guqin and coming from Hanguang-Jun, they seemed to speak louder than outright words of praise.
The shuttlecock in particular used to be his prized possession and Lan Sizhui raises it fondly to examine it under the light. Tattered cloth strips threaded through the holes of a few coins are used to bind them together and drab feathers streaked with black are sewn to the fabric, stitches uneven but surprisingly sturdy. Though the feathers are ruffled from overenthusiastic kicks and one is dangling badly crooked out of shape, the faint golden sheen hints of their former brightly-coloured splendour. Lan Sizhui recalls dimly past memories of Hanguang-Jun handing him the toy and of cheerful contests with Jingyi over who would be able to keep it in the air the longest.
Nostalgia gives way to puzzlement. Now that he thinks about it, wasn't that feather already broken when he received the shuttlecock? And why would Hanguang-Jun leave toys in his desk drawers in the first place? He never wondered as a child how incongruous these playthings of rudimentary craftsmanship were in the Cloud Recesses, how odd that he was singled out by Hanguang-Jun. He never did because he was just happy and relieved that these toys allowed him to befriend the other boys of his age when he was still too shy to go to them.
His mulling is interrupted by a cheerful voice coming from behind him.
"Sizhui! Are you done with this section of the room —"
The footsteps halt abruptly as Wei Wuxian stands frozen in the doorway, eyes fixed on the object in Lan Sizhui's hands.
"That's…"
Wei Wuxian doesn't finish his sentence and instead closes the distance separating him from Lan Sizhui in long strides. Lan Sizhui gives him the shuttlecock wordlessly and for a long moment, Wei Wuxian can only glance to and fro between the toy in his hand and those in the box in stunned silence. Then, a delighted smile creeps over his face and turns into irrepressible laughter.
"… Hahahaha! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!"
The sounds of incoming footsteps are barely audible before a figure in white appears at the storeroom entrance. Wei Wuxian turns to address him with undisguised mirth, "Hahahahaha! I was so bored when I studied in the Cloud Recesses that I had no choice but to entertain myself with playthings of my own making! I thought that you destroyed them all when you confiscated them, just like that unfortunate, hem, book!"
Wei Wuxian winks at Lan Sizhui, "Come on Sizhui, let's take a break and kick that shuttlecock for a bit, what do you say? I'm sure Hanguang-Jun has no objection!"
It is a pale winter morning but something warm and fond can be perceived in these eyes as light-coloured as glass.
"Mn."